Redefining fashion since 1949
Uniqlo has been a popular high-street clothing brand for nearly 40 years, but its Japanese routes go back almost 75 years. As part of a wider awareness campaign, we were asked to create an identity and animation with a focus on celebrating Japanese heritage.
What we did
Creative Direction
Visual Identity
Design and build
Animation
Optimisation
Brand heritage
The focus of this experimental project was to give the brand a modern and distinctive facelift, whilst maintaining the key historical elements and instantly recognisable features of the brand.
Samurai culture
There is no great symbol of Japanese heritage than that of the Samurai, a military nobility who helped shape Japan’s history throughout the medieval period. But it’s significance lives on to this day in Japanese culture, impacting modern lifestyles and traditions.
Bushido - The way of the warrior
We created an identity around Samurai culture. Using the Japanese hieroglyphs from the logo, we create a character that is instantly recognisable as a Samurai warrior, whilst maintaining a visual connection with the main brand.
Samurai conduct philosophy was built on values such as honour, loyalty, purpose and duty. So we brought our character to life with motion that depicts him running through the landscape, constantly on alert and ready to defend. This brings a sense of duty and honour, whilst the purpose of his mission is open to interpretation...
We created our environment based on the mountainous region of Central Honshu in Japan, with the iconic Mount Fuji in the distant background. Adhering to the brand guidelines, we created a colour palette using only black, white and greyscale with the Uniqlo red as the single highlight colour.
The scene
Our animation was built using flat 2D imagery, populated in a 3D environment, creating depth. A camera dolly was then used to follow our warrior as he runs through the landscape. We cut the sequence together using a combination of close, medium and wide camera shots, giving a cinematic feel to the final sequence...
Designed predominantly for the outdoor space, we reformatted various versions of the ad for specific digital and static screens on the high-street and in malls around the world. We also created clothing artwork and labels for relevant streetwear apparel.
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